


All That I Forget

by NeverComingHome



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 17:23:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12686760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverComingHome/pseuds/NeverComingHome
Summary: Iris thinks she can save Caitlin by saving Killer Frost. She can't. Altered universe after the events of season three with spoilers for season four.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Contains: Dubious consent surrounding Caitlin/Iris and emotional manipulation.

Iris had a savior complex. Joe became aware of it when she was five years old and lecture-shouted at bullies rather than telling a teacher. Apart of him understood their concern, but what was he supposed to tell her? Stop being empathetic. Stop letting other people’s problems become your own. When you see something wrong turn in the opposite direction and get an adult even when you’re capable of immediately intervening. He was a cop. His entire career was based on sticking his nose in other people’s business. His daughter sticking up for the little guy was the least of his worries.

So he’d nodded along to their concerns, stressed to Iris the importance of telling someone who could make sure justice was served, then got back to making a living for a household that soon added an extra member. Barry didn’t keep Iris from continuing to stand up for the little guy, but he played a large part in making sure none of the consequences got back to Joe. He did a pretty good job of it until there was no way to cover up the fact that she’d had a public argument with their high school principal over an american lit teacher calling on a student with an obvious lisp to read aloud despite his repeated requests not to.

“I’m here to learn, dad, not witness someone’s daily humiliation at the hands of an authority figure. You told me to stand up for people. You told me to never back down.”

“Oh honey.”

It was too late, already, to walk back the values and ideals cemented in her. She promised Barry and Joe she knew her limits and would always find a way to do what was safe and right. As soon as the words left her mouth she knew it was a promise she’d eventually break.

 

* * *

 

“I’m only interesting to you because I’m broken.”

Iris sat up in the bed, wondering if she would ever get to see how Caitlin's apartment looked in daylight.

“You should work on your pillow talking skills, Frost.”

“Well, we can’t have you getting too comfortable. I hid your purse before _she_  took over, but it was sloppy.” Frost traced a finger up Iris’s naked arm. "If I didn't know any better I'd say it was intentional.”

“Maybe I want her to know about us.”

“Mm, but then you’d have to admit your stupid plan of fucking me to redemption.”

Frost was right and wrong. She’d tracked down Caitlin a year after Barry disappeared into the speed-force for help on a case. She’d ran into Killer Frost in the midst of hanging some lowlife off a balcony and stepped in. She had it in her head that she could (save her) help her to control her impulses or, at the very least, keep her out of trouble. She taught her how to meditate and find the range of force in her powers and Frost had played along out of sheer amusement.

Weeks later, with seemingly no result, Iris went the bar to come clean to Caitlin about what was going on, but the minute Caitlin caught sight of her Frost took over. With a smug grin she told Iris that all the meditation had paid off and she’d figured out a way to take control in the same way that Caitlin had figured out how to give over control. Iris asked how she knew she was there and Frost hesitated, not exactly sure herself. It was a victory, but Iris didn’t know whose so she accepted the beer pushed into her hand and the one after that and the one after that. Before she knew it they were in a booth and Frost had her mouth on Iris’s ear, telling her that Barry was a fool for leaving, that she would’ve let the world end for a shot with her. She would’ve razed the earth, frozen the crooks, and brought down empires to be looked at the way Iris looked at Barry.

Iris laughed, “Oh my god, are you-are you flirting with me?”

“No, doll face, I’m negotiating.” Iris should’ve called a cab, proclaimed firmly that she was drunk and would not be taken advantage of. Frost was staring at her with a slight pinkness to her cheeks hinting at warmth beneath, Caitlin’s warmth, and all the blurred lines became blurrier.

“Come back to the lab with me? Cisco thinks he can integrate the two of you.”

“And if he can’t he'll shove me deep into Caity’s id where I belong, right?” Frost pushed aside the beer she hadn’t touched and placed two icy fingers beneath Iris’s chin to look her in the eye. “How can I get better if everyone keeps locking me away?”

It was foolish to believe Frost’s words were anything short of weaponized emotion, but if Iris was drunk on anything it was the possibility of redemption. Apart of her wondered _is this safe?_ before she wrapped Frost into a hug and promised to do the right thing.

 

* * *

 

It took longer than Iris would ever admit before she realized the truth. Frost said she would stay out of the underworld when Caitlin was in a good place, but because of Frost’s association with the underworld Caitlin could never be in a good place. The last time she covered for Frost was never the last time and after a while Iris could no longer excuse fighting bad guys at STAR labs while enabling one in her free time.

“I never asked to be your charity case.”

“Really? You show up at my door and sit on my couch while I talk at you and pretend you care like we’re friends. For what? So you can give me lowlifes to chase while you do your dirty work on the other side of town. I want to help you.”

“Bored! New game: if you can tell me one thing you’ve learned about Caitlin that Barry or Cisco didn’t tell you, I’ll leave forever. Come on, West. One. Thing.” Iris glared at her. “That's what I thought. Caitlin is in control ninety percent of the time, but you only come around late at night when it’s frosty out. All of this began and will end with you and me, baby."

Iris knew instinctively that Frost was right and of all the people to help Caitlin she couldn't be one of them. She knew a psychiatrist who could address the possibly of Caitlin being so traumatized by her powers that her mind manifested it into a separate entity embodying her worst fears. She knew scientists who could attack the issue on a medical front to determine if there was a way to keep the powers, but lose the Frost. She knew her dad and Wally and Harry who would tell her that Killer Frost was a manipulative crook who prioritized her own needs and desires to the detriment of even those she needed and desired.

But Iris was born with an invisible ‘S’ on her chest. When Frost kissed her and promised to change, as long as Iris promised to help her, Iris believed her.

* * *

 

“-fucking me to redemption.” Iris made to get out of bed, but Frost grabbed her hand and froze them together. “I’m sorry,” she drawled, "it slipped out. Let me make it up to you."

“I want Caitlin," Iris whispered.

“What?” The ice recoiled and Iris pulled the blankets tight around her.

“Right now. I need to talk to Caitlin.”

“You're insane. Get dressed.”

“Not until I talk to her.”

“I said, get out.”

“No.”

“Get out!”

Iris pinned Frost to the bed and kissed her, fire meeting ice and nearly canceling one another out. Her tongue parted Frost’s lips and Iris thought of all the nights she’d laid in this bed with Frost’s head between her legs while she closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see pictures of Caitlin on the nightstand. She kissed Frost until it was warmth against warmth and she wasn’t kissing Frost anymore. As if coming out of a dream, Caitlin kissed her back and Iris imagined a beginning she could rationalize.

(Barry gone, perhaps indefinitely, she’d formed a friendship with one of his coworkers that became romantic in the shared experience of losing him. She kissed Caitlin after defeating a meta then again when they were watching a movie. They leaned on each other and struggled together with understandable, righteous dilemmas that came with saving the city. She woke up in their apartment every day to sunshine falling into their room and realized this could be...)

Caitlin opened her eyes and scrambled off the bed and onto the floor.

“Please leave.”

“Listen, I know this is strange for you, but you have to let me explain.”

“You don’t have to explain,” Caitlin shouted, snatching Iris’s clothes from the dresser and throwing them at her chest, “I remember everything.”


	2. Chapter 2

After what felt like an eternity Caitlin's days were starting to become consistent. Men in dark coats stopped showing up at work pressuring her for help and she stopped waking up in the back of police cars. She thought that, miraculously, a flip had switched and the universe was finally listening to her or that from sheer will she'd pressed Killer Frost out.

She started dreaming of Iris. At first they were stress dreams with Iris’s face in the background or nonsensical ones in which Iris was dressed in gold and instructing her to take deeper breathes. As time went on it began to flesh out to create an almost-narrative. Iris’s shoulder bumping against hers as they walked in silence through a park late at night. Caitlin on Iris’s couch while the other woman drank wine and talked about how hard it was to keep up appearances, Wally’s Jesse woes, and walking in on Cisco and Gypsy. Caitlin's head nodded, but she didn't speak. Sometimes she would have a drink in her hand, but never took more than a few gentle sips from it.

Those dreams always gave birth to the more uncomfortable ones somehow. The ones where she was lifting a man off his feet and freezing off his body parts one by one while Amunet laughed in the background and called her a gem. She didn’t know which type she found more disturbing, but they were both so frequent and raw that once, after a customer chewed her out for spilling a drink into their lap, she’d taken out her cellphone on instinct and dialed a number.

“This is Iris.”

“Iris?”

“Speaking.”

Caitlin had hung up and locked herself into a bathroom stall to keep her hands from shaking. Over time the way the figment of Iris looked at her changed from casual and earnest to passionate to resigned, but loving. Caitlin didn't have enough of the pieces to figure out what her subconscious was trying to tell her. Did Iris represent home? Barry? The Flash? None of it and all of it all at once?

* * *

 

Caitlin had a nightmare that Iris yelled at her like it was her first time yelling, but all Caitlin did was stare with her arms crossed. She wanted to wake up, but she couldn’t. Tears started to well up in Iris's eyes when Caitlin opened her mouth and spoke clearly and unarguably with Frost's voice.

“All of this began and will end with you and me, baby.”

She wasn't dreaming; she had never been dreaming. Iris West had tracked down a broken person for help and instead of walking away she'd split her own world like Caitlin had split hers. She’d compromised her integrity and it was tearing her apart, but she still showed up to beg Killer Frost to be a good person and had the nerve to sound like she really believed it.

“I promise I can change." Caitlin's fingers were numb, but no longer under Frost's control. She knew her eyes were starting to change, color spiraling through the white, so she leaned in and let Iris lose herself in the path to her lips. "Don't give up on me.”

“I won't. I don't-" she kissed Caitlin again, "I can do this."

“Caitlin is coming out. You shouldn't be here.”

Iris pressed one last kiss to Caitlin’s mouth and ducked quickly out the apartment. It should've been a beginning, but it felt more like an end.

* * *

 

Frost couldn’t love Iris or fully appreciate the feelings the other woman was developing and it was slowly driving Caitlin mad. She clung to what she could glimpse of Iris telling her she was strong and important and could do everything all the time, knowing she wasn't really talking to her. Before, her and Iris never spent much time together and when they did the conversation was about their partners or their work, but suddenly Iris was an open book to Frost. When the dregs of Frost's interactions weren’t enough Caitlin installed cameras in her apartment to watch them unfold for herself.

Frost always seemed to be itching out of her skin to do more than just talk, but Iris was covering the other’s tracks dutifully so she lidded her frustration. And yeah, maybe Caitlin wasn’t the best when it came to advice, but she would've done more than stare at the ceiling and roll her eyes. Caitlin left notes on how to be a good person for Frost on the mirror and came around to find NO written on them or scraps of it in the garbage disposal. She thought of calling Iris and airing it all out so they could try to salvage whatever it was that was happening between the two of them and nearly did until Frost found the cameras.

* * *

 

“Let's slow it down there.”

Frost pressed herself tighter between Iris’s legs. “Some might argue we’ve been moving at a glacial pace.”

“This is Caitlin’s body too.”

“Trust me she’s hard up for it.”

Iris’s head was on the arm of the couch, one leg on the cushions and the other on the ground. “Regardless there's this little thing called consent. I can't.”

“Fine, so you don’t,” Frost purred. "Don't move a muscle."

Caitlin gritted her teeth as she watched Frost continue to kiss Iris who looked wary, but only bit the corner of her bottom lip when her pants were pushed down. Caitlin’s grip on the remote tightened, but she couldn’t look away, waiting for Iris to put a stop to it.

She never did and when Iris came Frost looked directly into the camera situated between two books to mouth _‘she’s mine’_.

* * *

 

“I remember everything.” 

The front door shut quietly behind Iris who couldn't hear Caitlin crying on the other side of it.

 

* * *

 

Maybe if they were different they would've let it stand between them like a wall for the rest of their lives, but Caitlin was sick of feeling cold inside and out. She dropped off the grid to a place even Cisco took months to find. When she came back the undercoat of her hair was white and her eyes were split in the middle brown and blue. She had a scar running from wrist to arm that Iris traced as they stood in the containment unit they'd found her locked in beneath too many layers of arctic snow.

"Do you want to grab some coffee after this?" She asked, buttoning the last button on Iris's snow coat.

"What about, you know, what happened?"

"What happened? I mean, _really_? You fell in love with Frost, who was me, and I fell in love with the way you fell in love with me."

Iris smiled and watched, felt, Caitlin's hand turn from ice to warmth as they interlaced their fingers. "I drink tea now."

So they drank tea.


End file.
